49 CFR Parts 37 and 38 -- Transportation for Individuals With Disabilities at Intercity, Commuter, and High Speed Passenger Railroad Station Platforms; Miscellaneous Amendments, Preamble

DOT Response

The Department believes that when a denied or missed trip makes a subsequent requested trip impossible, two opportunities to travel have been lost from the point of view of the passenger. In the ontext of a statute and regulation intended to protect the opportunities of passengers with disabilities to use transportation systems in a nondiscriminatory way, that is the point of view that most matters. To count denials otherwise would understate the performance deficit of the operator. The paratransit operator obviously would not need to count as a denial a trip that was actually made (e.g., trip from Point A to Point B missed, passenger gets to Point B in a taxi, and paratransit operator carries him from Point B back to Point A). While there may be situations in which an operator would have to exercise judgment concerning whether the denial of one trip resulted in a lost opportunity for a subsequent trip, that is not sufficient reason, in the Department's view, to permit paratransit operators to generally avoid counting as denials lost opportunities for travel resulting from their own inability to provide previous trips. We also caution paratransit operators against declining to take reservations for round trips or “will call” trips in order to reduce missed or denied trip statistics.

It is also important for there to be a standardized way of counting missed trips and denials that the Department, passengers, and transit providers can rely upon. These statistics should be calculated on the same basis nationwide, in order to permit better program evaluation and comparisons across transit providers. The Department is issuing guidance on counting missed/denied trips, and the Federal Transit Administration can work further with transit providers on appropriate statistical measures.